djtet

Check the demographic breakdown for the user ratings. Fascinating. Apparently young men think this is awful while middle-aged guys (yeah, that's me) think it's great.

What this is, is simply the most intimate documentary ever made, and it's subjects are 'regular people', specifically lower-middle-class teens in Muncie, Indiana. I guess some reviewers feel such folks aren't worth making a film about, and would rather watch movies about wizards and elfin princesses. For those who find reality interesting, 'Seventeen' is 'direct cinema' (aka cinema verite) taken as far as the form can go. It was shot with a fixed focal length wide-angle lens, which means that the camera is basically within 4-8 feet of the subjects most of the time. This yields amazing revelatory moments, and perhaps a sense of queasiness on exactly the same grounds, the subjects are pretty exposed. This caused a fair amount of controversy. The film had been commissioned for a PBS series, and PBS (cowards) dropped it. The film has continued to be largely repressed, and is seldom screened. If you get a chance to see it, DO NOT PASS IT UP. You will never see anything else quite like it, and whether you 'like' it or not it's a unique and thought provoking experience.

A Macdonald's meal of a movie, all fat sugar salt and caffeine, supersized with whiz bang special effects. Tastes great while you're eating it, but short on nourishment. They did it well enough that this junk food has squeezed pretty much everything good off the menu. The pic is just mediocre, but the trends it started have been horrid. Cornball plotting and dialog is one thing, but the simple-minded good vs. evil masquerading as some sort of authentic spirituality is vomit inducing. The sequel, with its Freudian undertones, has some real conflict and character development and is actually a pretty good popcorn movie. But the original may be the most over-rated movie of all time.

I can't believe the low score this has here. Must be the chicken sympathy vote. This is a 'direct cinema' documentary, slice of life, all shot fly-on-the-wall as it happens, without interviews or voice-overs. As such it is quite different from Nick Broomfield's later 'solo' films, which feature sensational subjects, Broomfield's on-camera interactions, and discussions of his difficulties in making the films. 'Soldeir Girls', similar in form to the Maysles 'Salesman' follows a group of female recruits through basic training, and eventually focuses in on the one who can't keep up. But where Paul emerges as a failure in Salesman, Pvt. Johnson may be the winner in resisting the Army's attempts to break her spirit. With militarism seemingly on the American agenda for the foreseeable future, this remains a timely film, and it's a shame it's not in video distribution here in the US. As the other comment notes, this would be a good film for anyone considering enlisting, but I would say its also useful for anyone who a relative, friend, or countryman who might wind up in the military. In short, there are things on view here we should all be aware of. The film is very well made. Joan Churchill is an amazing camera person, and she gets right inside the action with incredible close-up shots. Churchill and Broomfield had amazing access. They seem to have had cues from the DIs and the recruits about what was about to happen, and the camera often anticipates the events, giving the film much of the coherence and drama of fiction. I doubt the Army is going to let any independent filmmakers get this close again, even in non-combat situations like this, the PR machine has the clamps tightened down now. Not that this film is necessarily negative to the Army -- it's actually very sympathetic to the tough as nails drill sergeant -- but its realistic enough to show more warts than the Pentagon wants to show. Highly recommended.